


Foundation

by bardbarianrage



Category: Epic (2013)
Genre: Cheers for Finn the red-headed leafman with an obvious disposition toward Sass, Gen, Implied Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardbarianrage/pseuds/bardbarianrage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A secondary character, a second in command, a second’s worth of introspection. Even the greatest of leaders depend upon the support of their kinsmen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foundation

It was an issue of silence.

A brave man experienced pain no less intensely than cowards, but a brave man bearing a title of honor held very rigidly, very tightly, to a code of silence.

Most men, himself included, respected those warriors who rose above turbulent emotion in times of conflict and were, themselves, often among this class. Well trained, professional and devoted to peace above their own personal comfort. 

He understood (as only a soldier could), the impulse. It had possessed him before, in the wakes of comrades passing to Boggan skirmishes- hard moments where his good humor was not enough and not appropriate. In those blazing days of youth where jealousies (for so many reasons, sometimes unjustly toward a woman pure and true) made him mute with anger. But such sores, even the most potent, he never allowed to fester.

As in the forest, left unchecked, rot spread.

A warrior had heart, strong to the last beat but even a general with a hide tougher than bark and a stare cutting as a hawk’s had wounds inside needing more than a balm of quiet resignation. So as tired as his optimism came and as steeped in hierarchical niceties as their communications often ran, he constantly (over and over and over) reminded Ronin of (as constantly as Ronin himself repeated it) the creed every leafman carried unto death.

‘Many leaves, one tree’.

And during periods they were relieved of duty and expectation (sometimes even despite duty and expectation, on the field), he reminded the man not with the words but with its more subtle interpretation.

Companionship.

When nothing could be spoken, he offered the unspoken. A hand lain to rest on a shoulder bowed by the loss of Moonhaven’s finest rider and father.

Lain to rest again on the man silenced by a loss that struck them all only in halves, comparatively.

He was one, one leaf, one man (with absolutely no insubordinate sensibilities), but he was always one of many healing an ailing friend in small, uncountable ways. Life was circular in nature, this he knew.

One day when he fell (if fate saw his end not in old age), though his hand would not be that left to cradle those bowed shoulders there would be others. And this he accepted gladly. Support, heal, grow.

Until the issue of silence was more of an issue of dealing with Ronin and his renegade Nod.

And certainly he had no opinions on that.


End file.
